Spent a little time mucking around with the camera on Spatz this morning. I like trying to reproduce images similar to how the real thing appeared at the surrender and beyond at Leck airfield in May 45. One thing I've learnt is by comparing colour and B/W images, it gives a good clue as to whether one has achieved the right tonal effects with a colours. There is a decent enough difference between RLM 81 (brown) and RLM 82 (green) in colour, but it's hard to make out the two in the original B/W images. The key is ensuring in particular the RLM 82 is not too light and this is easily verified by some existing He-162s that still sport the original paint. There were no doubt substantial variations in these paints during wartime, so in effect everyone is right and wrong. Throw into this paint fade and lighting/film effects so it's all very much guess work. Photos taken without a flash using long exposure and small aperture.
He-162 BW (1024x698) by Adam Dormer, on Flickr
DSC_2451 Colour (1024x728) by Adam Dormer, on Flickr
DSC_2449 (1024x610) by Adam Dormer, on Flickr
He-162 Colour RHS BMW (1024x610) (1024x610) by Adam Dormer, on Flickr
DSC_2450 (1024x583) by Adam Dormer, on Flickr
DSC_2448 by Adam Dormer, on Flickr
DSC_2446 (1024x723) by Adam Dormer, on Flickr

As I just can't find anything else more to do on Spatz and reached a point of diminishing returns should I try, it's done - PHEW! First model finished in two years. This was supposed to be a simple mojo enhancer as Tamiya builds usually are, but it ended up being a epic super-detailing build, particularly in regard to the engine. I added over 70+ individual pieces to the engine - just lost count in the end. So, at least I have something for Model Expo next year finished!
20180725_133654[4017] by Adam Dormer, on Flickr
20180725_133531[4018] by Adam Dormer, on Flickr
20180725_133438[4019] by Adam Dormer, on Flickr
20180725_133232[4021] by Adam Dormer, on Flickr
20180725_133156[4022] by Adam Dormer, on Flickr
20180725_133132[4023] by Adam Dormer, on Flickr

Revi gun sight fitted and I wanted to show the brilliant Yahu instrument panel which are just jewels in my opinion. The kit comes with a decal for the instruments, so well worthy of a upgrade in my opinion. The instrument panel was the only AM part I purchased, as I did want to minimise AM purchases as much as possible on this build. The seat beats I found in my etch spares.
20180703_124023_resized[3851] by Adam Dormer, on Flickr
20180703_123917_resized[3853] by Adam Dormer, on Flickr

I keep finding more and more real estate to populate with detail on this little engine and the more I do it, the better my skills become. Some of my first attempts are a little crude compared to where I'm at now. It's more about working with the materials I have - brass tube, bits of wire I've collected over the years, etc. I have some thin stainless wire I can't remember where I got it from - off some instrument I think. It's pretty springy and hard to bend. So how to fix this I thought to myself as it's the perfect gauge for some fuel lines on the engine. I thought why not heat it, so I found a trusty BIC lighter and turned the wire red hot and bingo = perfect colour and easier to bend - yay! I'll have to repeat this process for the Airfix Meatbox Mk.8 I attempt down the track as this kit as two beautiful little engines to detail - I'd only do the one as two would surely kill me! Plumbing is now mostly done. I have the electrics (yellow) and what looks to be a air line (blue) to add finally, then paint and grime.
20180703_114932_resized by Adam Dormer, on Flickr
20180703_114959_resized by Adam Dormer, on Flickr

Thanks Peter! I've put in far more effort into this little kit than I thought I would - it was supposed to be a quick mojo improving build. The BMW engine on the stand is a separate model in itself and requires more scratch building than the 162 itself. As a scale, I prefer 1/32 but build 1/48 when I believe the model in this scale is better than the offering in 1/32, or it simply does not exist in 1/32. Thanks again for your comments and I'll keep the posts coming!

Some work fitting the canopy lock and adding the little "loops" to the canopy frame as part of the canopy locking system - micro-surgeons eat your heart out!
Canopy by Adam Dormer, on Flickr
Spatz with canopy by Adam Dormer, on Flickr

Almost finished my little He-162 Spatz. This is the Tamiya kit which I think is excellent and more accurate than the 1/32 Revell offering - there's something about the Revell 162's nose that looks wrong to me - anyhoo, on with my build.
Tamiya I think get it just right in regard to detail. What they do, they do well leaving plenty of scope for scratch building and AM stuff to jazz up the build. I've chosen to reproduce "Red 1" flown by Lt. Gerhard Hanf of 2.JG1 at Leck. This 162 had "Nervenklau" painted on the LHS by ground crews meaning nerve claw. So the story goes, Hanf used to roar off to the airfield early in the morning on his motorbike rattling the nerves of the still sleeping ground crews. Red 1 ended up in USA and was flown by the legendary Bob Hoover and a major reason for building this particular bird.
Some plumbing in the wheel bay.
DSC_1608 by Adam Dormer, on Flickr
DSC_1619 by Adam Dormer, on Flickr
Some extra details and plumbing added to the cockpit.
DSC_1621 by Adam Dormer, on Flickr
DSC_1620 by Adam Dormer, on Flickr
Slowly and painstakingly adding plumbing to the BMW engine.
20180620_170844 by Adam Dormer, on Flickr
Painted & grimed/oiled.I don't believe I went overboard here in reference to photos. They were not flown that much, but they would have leaked like sieves and were largely kept outdoors - fuel + oil + dust = grim.
20180620_170806_resized[3741] by Adam Dormer, on Flickr
20180620_170719_resized[3740] by Adam Dormer, on Flickr
20180613_160708_resized by Adam Dormer, on Flickr
Plenty of jobs left to do. Finishing up scratch building the canopy lock - 7 separate parts to far! Master Models gun barrels and nose wheel position indicator added with pitot tube, loop radio antennae plus Revi gun sight to follow at end. Final matt "dust" coat to come. A few more wires and tubes to add to the engine as well.

It all depends on what timeframe you are wanting to built in. The very first deployment to Port Morseby was by 75 Sqn, commanded by the legendary Sqn Ldr John Jackson. These first Kitty's were gifted by the USAAF, so I would strongly suggest that they were fitted out accordingly. There wasn't even time to repaint these Kitty's other than apply RAAF roundels and serial numbers - such was the dire emergency at hand. If you want a good read, look up "44 Days". It covers this first deployment of 75 Sqn and the phenomenal challenge they faced. The conditions were pretty horrific at Moreseby and pretty well all pilots ended up flying with bad gastric conditions - to put it crudely, they were shitting into their flying boots in flight. Most of the pilots were terribly inexperienced - some with only 10 hours on Kittyhawks. Their leader Jackson was a veteran of the fighting in the Western Desert and knew exactly how to fight with the Kitty - get as much height as possible, dive on the bad guys and keep going. Use that energy to climb and repeat. Sadly though due to lack of early warning, 75 Sqn was very rarely able to have the advantage of height. Their principle foe was the Imperial Japanese Navy Zeros - with pilots such as the very experienced and talented Saburo Sakai. Jackson was killed over Port Moresby in combat with Zeros. The night before he had been summoned to HQ in Moresby to discuss "tactics" and been told his squadron was acting like a pack of dingoes (skittish wild dog in Australia) because they would not "dogfight" the Zeros - Jackson of course knowing this would be suicide with his zoom and climb method being the best tactic. The next day, it took three Zeros to kill Jackson with him swear black and blue on the way down. Jackson's brother Les took command of what was left of 75 Sqn and this squadron was later relieved by a USAAF P-39 squadron with 75 returning to Australia for rest and to reequip. 75 went on to do glorious things along with 76 Sqn at the battle of Milne Bay - that's another story! Google RAAF 75 Sqn and Sqn Ldr John Jackson and you will read quite a story. This episode I believe was Australia's version of the Battle of Britain - of course on a much smaller scale, but fought at the same level of intensity and bravery. Couple of years ago I was travelling to a mine in PNG and on return once I took the opportunity to visit Sqn Ldr John Jackson's grave at Bomana War Cemetery in Port Moresby - this was a little adventure in itself!
75 Sqn in Queensland - on it's way to Port Moresby .
Jackson's grave. Port Moresby's International Airport is named after Jackson.
Here's a photo of ol' John himself. He was pretty "old" for a fighter pilot - 34 when he died. He had been a pretty wealthy pastoralist (farmer) pre-war and even owned a Beech Staggerwing - a aeroplane at the time faster than anything the RAAF had in service! He didn't need to fight given his age. Could of sat on a instructor or desk job in the RAAF, but he chose to fight. He is one of the bravest men I've ever read about.
Good luck with your build - be it 75, 76 or 77 Sqn you do - heroes all!
All the best
Adam

You make some great points regarding the reliance to technology. So agree with your instructing technique regarding GPS. Even in something like a Pitts or Laser, using a E6B is pretty impossible - the time old method of sticking to the red line on a map marked off with 10 nm increments, wet compass and watch has to do. I've friends who do of course swear by iPad flight planning software like "OzRunways", which gives one a moving map plus all the other benefits. One must be prepared though for when this tech fails, weather forces a divert at low altitude as per your example. Also interesting your point regarding the tech in the F-35. The very first generation jammers (QRC-160) used by F-105 crews over North Vietnam required pretty tight formations to ensure proper coverage. These pods were practically hand made and rushed into combat. It must have taken massive brass ones to fly the jamming profile correctly for these pods to have a chance of working, then the dreaded MiG warnings would have broken up these tight jamming formations, etc and that jamming formation would go to ****. Of course this technology along with the tactics have evolved enormously over the last 50 years. Exercises like Red Flag are there to find holes in tactics and technology - hopefully. The "Wests" potential adversaries have nothing like Red Flag and are generally regarded to be way behind (as much as 10 years) in a number of key technologies (stealth, AESA radar, jet engine, sensor fusion), nor are there the shear weight of numbers to counter more advanced tech like in the Soviet era (thousands of MiG-21s). Red Flag did prove that it's possible for adversaries to get lucky and get through to F-35s, but it took a very very large number of adversaries to do this - probably way more than would ever be possible in real life. The adversaries were able to regenerate a number of times and were able to get lucky and visually acquire F-35s on a very few occasions. Once the F-35 will be able to carry more AIM-120s internally (currently 2 and will go up to 4, then 6) and use the AIM-9X & AIM-132 ASRAAMs, this will make it pretty well impossible to take out any meaningful number of F-35s in a strike group. All these assets are networked together - from AEW&C, jammer/SEAD fighters like E-18Gs, 5th gen fighters, other 4th Gen fighters and bombers, other space, air and ground based ISR assets - this makes it very very hard for any potential adversaries. The users themselves seem very happy with the F-35 so far. All of we on the outside of this program can do is either accept or reject this, but this changes nothing of course to we the "great unwashed"!. Service chiefs and the air & ground crews appear very happy with the F-35 so far and that's good enough for me.